Top 5 Arena Civilizations in Age of Empires II

hello everyone it's the viper here and today we'll be journeying to the circus where we're going to discuss the top five arena civilizations in this list we'll focus mainly on one ones as in team games the sieve combinations will rely on completely different strengths and weaknesses i know a lot of people will unsubscribe because of my beautiful t-shirt today but glory glory arena is very different from arabia or the other open maps that are commonly popular the map is a clearing surrounded by forests on all sides where both players start with full estonia bases this means that strategies such as a rush or archer rush are not possible there also aren't any hills so units will end up fighting on only flat terrain in every single encounter the map lends itself to different unicombinations than we would see on for example arabia with monks siege and other slow units being much more popular on arena as the enclosed space means there isn't as much room for faster units to take advantage of their mobility relics also play an important role in arena these holy artifacts generate a slow trickle of gold while garrisoned in a monastery and has a big impact on how this map plays out in a 1x1 there will be 5 relics in total so if you could get 4 to 1 or even 5-0 relics that's going to be a huge advantage the arena map itself has changed since it was introduced in the conquerors expansion sheep boars and deer are now guaranteed to spawn inside your base so you don't need to rush outside immediately in order to find them relics and extra gold and stone mines will also spawn in the center between the player's bases to ensure an even playing field with these changes come changes in the meta with greater emphasis being placed on the middle of the map one of the most common openings is to build a stable as one of your required buildings to advance to the castle age while advancing you make a few scouts perhaps supported by spearmen to start taking map control as you hit the castle age you follow up with monks to pick up the relics maybe the light cavalry upgrade some knights and also potentially some scorpions to help deal with enemy spearmen and monks there are a lot of different variations to this very common opening and you'll see it play out differently every single game you'll also see crossbows and eagle warriors as the main unit of choice to compete for map control and the relics other strategies such as a pure monk rush castle drops heavy focus on a unique unit even a pure boom are still possible especially if your civilization has a bonus for it but a scout's opening to help collect the relics and take map control is currently considered the strongest meta another note is that stonewalls now have 900 hit points in the feudal age and don't receive their full 1800 hit points until the castle age this can make some interesting plays in the feudal age such as tower rushes or and ram pushes viable to apply pressure in the early game but you'll still see fast castle strategies used far more often other strategies you'll see on arena are ford castle drops followed by unique unit pressure with siege and monks fast imperial plays with castle drops traps and monks and even sometimes the use of siege towers transporting range units or villagers across walls or even longswords so what are we looking for when we're trying to determine the best arena civilization first has to be the economic bonuses a good early game economy can help to get to the castle age faster create town centers faster get more army on the field and get a strong early lead over an opponent a good late game economy can help for stalemate games where you are locked in a trash unit war with your opponent or to compete while having less relics next you want a civilization with a wide variety of playstyles arena can end up having very one-sided sieve matchups generally strong civilizations such as the mayans can be hard countered by lesser receives such as the goth simply because minds lack a proper answer to the host calls stabilizations with wider attack trees and more options are better at avoiding bad matchups such as this one so you can always adapt your approach based on your opponent's civilization and strategy unique units can also come into play on arena more so than other maps since you begin safely behind stonewalls it is possible to fast castle then immediately construct a castle to begin training unique units boom watchers conquistadors janissaries and other unique units all play important roles for their respective civilizations army compositions imperial age sea units are also very important in arena the availability of siege rams bomber cannons and even sea jaunters can drastically affect a civ's late-game playstyle bombard cannons in particular are a key unit in arena as the early imperial age can be crucial for the outcome of the game and bombard cannons help in taking out important enemy positions with castles and trebuchets and also defend your own and finally we need to mention the monks they are useful of course for collecting relics but arena is perhaps most known for the crazy crazy monk crushes you would see 20 30 even 40 monks with some siege pushing both in castle age and imperial age without any economy to support it monks only cost gold so that's the only resource you needed once the monasteries were up if you need something else simply use the market to buy it it's important to know the monastery tech tree of your civilization if you're attacked by siege then researching redemption to convert mangonels and block printing for extra range to convert bomber cannons can be an extremely strong counter in the right situation and if your opponent is going heavy into monks then researching heresy can stop a monk rush in its tracks heresy is available in the castleage and makes your units die instead of being converted to your opponent's side as the conversion finishes but it is very expensive at 1 000 gold faith also a very expensive upgrade prolongs the conversion time but is only available to you in the imperial age then there's also atonement which allows monks to vululu and convert other monks now that we know what we're looking for let's jump into the list of the top 5 arena civilizations at number 5 we have the turks they've always been a very strong arena civilization but with the balance changes over the past year they have become even stronger their first bonus is very convenient with the current meta in mind as getting the light carry attack for free helps secure the early map control and assist monks in grabbing those very valuable relics then the turks also have the option to go for a unique unit the janissary the nsrs have 17 attack which increases to 22 for elite genisaurus this unit is with no doubt one of the strongest cast legions in the game with eight range they outrange crossbowman and mangonels making them extremely difficult to kill while having the potential for so much damage output there are some options for dealing with them such as plumed arches or britain crossbowmen but many sieves don't have the tools necessary to fight them especially in the castle age a lot of knights can in theory deal with them but the eighth range and a castle to run home to as soon as they sense danger leaves melee units a poor choice in most scenarios the turks gold mining speed bonus also contributes to their powerful castle's push not only does the extra gold help with training dinosaurs and siege but it also can be spent on monks while their monks miss block printing and drop off in power in the imperial age they have all the important castellage technologies and are an important complement to the turkish army and in the imperial age the turks get two key technologies for free hussar and chemistry the free chemistry allows for the training of hand cannon ears and bomber cannons immediately after advancing to the imperial age this technology bonus even opens up a fast imperial strategy where you stay in the dark age for a long time then advance straight to the imperial age to create gun powder units to overwhelm your opponent before they find time or technology to answer these gunpowder units even are trained 25 percent faster the hust attack is fairly expensive at 500 foot and 600 gold which becomes a really powerful upgrade to get for free this early recent balance changes have given the turks scout line plus one pierce armor as well making them an extremely good unit for both early and late in privilege one of the key weaknesses for turks used to be early and privileged arbalest with sieves such as britain's ethiopians and mayans being hard counters bullets kill their gunpowder units and without the ability to upgrade magnets to allengers or even skirmishers to elite skirmishers the turks would really struggle now however the free hustler upgrade combined with extra armor means the turks just need to do the imperial edge blacksmith upgrades and the hustler can deal with range units completely designed and that's not even the end of their imperialized upgrades they can research artillery as a unique technology for plus 2 range on bomber cannons bomber towers and cannon galleons they also have zipi to give more hp for their carry archers and they have c-drums to provide another siege option if the turks have any specific weakness it is definitely against early ram pushes with halberdiers without ongers the turks reliance on gunpowder can make it really difficult for them to stop the rams as the albertaires deal with their hussars but overall they're a great civilization with strong options on all close maps also including arena the turks hussar cavery archer bombard cannon and c drum combination might be one of the most cost efficient late game army compositions we have right now number four is the byzantines their strength lies in the diversity of their tech tree where they have an answer for pretty much any strategy their opponents can throw at them whether it's using monks early imperial age orbitalists and rams cheaper healthier than skirmishers hankins and bomber cannons extra hp castles or even a chiropractor the byzantines can employ a wide variety of strategies their cheaper imperial age also helps a lot it is possible to go for a sub 20 minute imperial age and still have enough economy to pressure your opponent with for example 12 ranged monks and bomber cannons or handkingers a strategy i have employed myself a few times already the cheaper imp also allows you to get trips out faster take into arbless more quickly and generally just provides a smooth transition into a potential power spike most of the byzantine power spikes are cheap and cost effective compositions just another big plus the monastery is also great with their monks healing faster and can be used both in offense and defense with the cheaper trashiness the byzantines take incredibly cost effective fights in imperial age you can spend hours throwing cheaper helps and skirms at your opponents and likely trade effectively in the end mix in some siege ramps and bomber cans as well and there are a few civilizations that have a cost-effective answer and if they try to counter that by going for example champions you can just mix in some obliged or catapults and finally spend some of your gold while the cheaper imperialist is nice their biggest weakness is probably the lack of an early game economy bonus cheaper spearman can help a bit in collecting relics and castlage elite skirmishes can be useful in some matchups but until the sieve starts advancing to imperial age that's really all they have going for their economy and whilst their monastery is great they can still quickly fall behind sieves such as aztecs mines or vikings and need to rely on the diversity of their army to make up the economic difference overall there is no civilization that heart counters the byzantines while they themselves heart counter certain civilizations such as the gods and the indians number three on the list is a newer civilization in the lithuanians as mentioned arena is a map that favors civilizations with strong scout monk rushes diverse tech trees and powerful gold units lithuanians excel in all of these categories not only is the sieve incentivized to contest relics due to their potential for extra carry attack as each relic up to four gives one extra attack on the nightland and their unique unit but they also have every tool they need to do this well from there lithuanians can comfortably go for any combination of trash units monks gunpowder and even heavy cavalry by starting with 150 extra food lithuanians can click up to the castleage with fewer wheels and slightly faster than other sieves granting them an initiative in the early fight for the relics to complement this they also have 10 faster moving spearmen to help snipe enemy scouts and on top of that you also have 20 faster working monasteries to further snowball your advantage however it is important that the lithuanians can use this momentum to gain an advantage in the early castlage because at that point they no longer have a practical economy bonus to help them boom up towards the imperial age regardless by mid castle age it is very likely that lithuanians players should have at least three relics and in addition to the extra gold income that brings it also opens the room for taking into heavy cavalry as the game goes on in general the closed nature of arena makes it difficult to cost efficiently use heavy cavalry however with a few extra relics the lithuanian players paladins or leitis have enough attack to simply crush everything in their path making it a very viable strategy to go for the kill going paladin in 101 is something i really recommend simply because it's very rarely cost efficient however the venus can actually pull it off of course this does not mean that the lithuanians are required to go for heavy cavalry against archesives lithuanians have 10 faster skirmishers to chase down those ranged units and the skirms can also get up to 10 pierce armor with the tower shield's unique deck which grants both skirmishers and heliberts plus two pierced armor versus cava sieves the speedy spare line can again have a chance to shine as the game goes on lithuanians can round out their army with fully upgraded monks handkingers bomber cannons and bomber towers lithuanians do have their weaknesses however as previously mentioned past early castleage the sieve does not have an eco bonus allowing sieves that have better mid game economies to get to imperialist faster finally due to having a weak swordsman line and siege workshop lithuanians can struggle to deal with very strong help siege pushes which are very popular with many good arena ships at number 2 we have the fan favorite the britons with arena having very little space for armies to maneuver britons can slowly push across the map with archers and siege units that range almost the entire battlefield it is very difficult to punish the immobility of the briton player's army as there is simply no room to run around their defensive position with for example kaori or eagle warriors before getting to late game britons have two excellent eco bonuses that aid them in the dark and castle age in the early game their 25 faster working shepherds give them the food necessary for storm castle times for most sieves wood is a very scarce resource in the early castle age as the player wants to be making farms a monastery the economy upgrades and extra town centers however since britain town centers cost 50 would less they will have a much easier time getting their mid game eco up and running while simultaneously making the military needed to contest the relics speaking of which britons can open scouts like most other sieves due to their early strong food economy but they naturally have the potential to go for crossbowmen in general archers tend to do better when you have a mass of them and the faster working archery ranges of the britons are critical in building up those numbers as quickly as possible this is true for early castellage crossbond play but equally helpful when beginning a large massive arbalest for the early imperial age by having more army faster the briton player can potentially move out for a forward castle drop as they hit him privilege granting them a substantial advantage in map control even better if you manage to keep crossbowmen alive throughout the game they will naturally become a part of a wanted late game composition anyway archers will form the core of any late game britain army starting with arbless and likely transitioning to longbowmen as the game goes on although britain's lack bomber cannons themselves the massive range of their archers allows them to easily pick off any enemy bomber cannons doing this is essential as it protects the briton's players trebuchets which will likely be their main siege unit this is actually a chance for the warwolf unique tech to shine as once researched the britons traps will have 100 accuracy allowing them to win every single tribal war the added blast damage of the tech can also be useful in taking out groups of enemy skirmishes or any clumped up army their extreme range also makes angers less scary as you can take them out from afar lastly britons will usually round out their army with helps light calf or occasionally swordsman and captain despite all this britons do have some glaring weaknesses perhaps more than other top civilizations britons tend to have very polarizing matchups where they have huge advantages against certain civilizations but then struggle a lot against others when it comes to britain killers the classic unit of choice is the siege ram which easily shrugs off arrow fire and trebuchet rocks as mentioned before a very popular strategy on arena is an early imperial age timing with halves and sea drams and britons do struggle a lot against the rams in particular as your early military tend to be heavily geared towards range units and halberdiers with no real damage output to take out the rams quickly if you can't take out those sea drams your production facilities and castles might disappear and even though you have a better composition you might just get overrun before revealing number one we have to mention a couple other sieves that could have easily made the list no arena video is complete without mentioning the aztecs they have the tankiest monks in the game with each monastery technology granting them five plus extra hp with a potential of up to 95 hit points the monk can literally tank a siege shot and keep converting they have great potential for aggression in both early castellation or the imperial age and even in late game they trade very well as long as they have a relic or two with their atlatl skirmishers and garland wars pikemen access to siege ramps and sea genders complement their composition very well an economy bonus of extra carry capacity allows them to advance the ages more quickly than other sieves and their bonus of 11 faster production means you can train an army with them faster too in some matchups they can also opt for arbolests but they do lack thumb ring competing for the relics is crucial as well as your relics will generate 33 more gold aztecs also have a few difficult civ matchups against other top tier arena civilizations such as teutons aztecs and the britons and also having no bomber cannon can't hurt the late game however they remain a top civilization on arena and has arguably been the best civilization in arena over the years the second honorable mention would be the king of the slow and powerful compositions the teutons everything about this civilization lends itself to arena an excellent economy deadly siege great infantry powerful monks and strong defenses especially when it comes to strong siege and infantry teutons will effectively hard counter any civilization that does not have bomber guns barred britain's throughout the early phases of the game the civilization is very strong with the extra conversion resistance playing a big part you don't get light cavalry but you can justify just going for knights instead as you do resist those conversions with free extra armor hitting both in cass lake and imperial age for infantry and cavalry you will very often be favored in those early fights for the relics behind this cheaper farms make your economy a rock solid and makes the transition to a very powerful imperialist composition very smooth in most cases you want to play infantry on the jets and bomber cannons but the tutans also have hankiners and paladins options should the situation call for it ironclad is a unique tech of the teutons granting extra melly armor to the siege further enhancing their extremely powerful one-dimensional imperial age plane 13-range castles after researching granulations means that bomber cans aren't a threat to your castles but they're still the most important unit to counter your oranges should your honor just disappear however range units are suddenly also a big problem for you finally we arrive at my number one civilization for arena the malay this may surprise some people as arena has no water for those infinite fish traps but malay has everything they need to stay ahead of your opponent every single phase of the game in fact i would go so far as to say that if malay are played properly they should beat every single civilization out there so then what makes this sieve stand out so much here first and foremost the malay bonus of aging up 66 faster is incredibly useful on a map that encourages a fast castle opening in almost every game because the melee player spends less time aging up their town centers can spend more time producing villagers this means malay will end up with two more villages in the feudal age and an additional three villagers upon hitting castleage typically this bonus is used to stay in the dark age longer than most civs allowing the malay player to have more villages working longer while still getting a very competitive castle time only civilizations that have similarly top tier economies such as vikings chinese and khmer can properly compete with this bonus beyond their economy malay have an excellent texture for arena allowing them to do pretty much any opening they can go scouts and monks like most civs with the knowledge that their economy will very likely be better in a mirrored strategy scenario in addition to the standard meta opening malay also possess quite strong monks lacking only fervor and theocracy not only the opening but the room for improvisation throughout the game is absolutely incredible for example should you be opening with a 3tc boom and suddenly be put under pressure in the castleage you could idle your town stands at say 40 50 villagers back to imperial legend you'd be there in no time suddenly you have arbalest and imperial age talking technology and you might not even be behind an economy and this is something that can be used offensively and defensively as the malay player hits imperial age they have a few different choices depending on the enemy's sieve and strategy arbalests are a strong all-around aggressive option particularly with traps in a forward castle mixing in habitaires and bomber cannons rarely can go wrong the civilization also has some potentially strong niche place with cheap elephants karambits and bomber towers lastly once gold starts to run low malay have access to fully upgraded helps skirmishers and potentially two-handed swordsmen that don't cause gold once you've researched forced levy there are very few weaknesses but lacking siege ram and only having the first armor upgrade for cavalry and not even bloodlines kind of make cabrio no go elephants can work in certain scenarios and light carry can still be an okay mobile rating choice for late game but it should never be a big part of your main army composition despite this all the other bonuses compensate by far and i will fight anyone that claims that malay is not the best arena civ so bring it on get those comments in before i end this video i want to point out something about arena which is kind of the case for every other map as well but more so for arena the strength of a civilization and strategy can heavily depend on your own kind of playstyle if you're a great micro player but struggle with economy management certain sieves that have more of the aggressive all-in-approach might benefit you more than the other sides with the strong economy and you're probably not looking to bring it to the late game and then if you're great on the macro aspect you probably want to pick the more boomy economic sieves with a strong strong post imperial age this also means that my top 5 list while i have taken into account every aspect about the map and the civilizations will probably be different from say hera doubt the arena specialists or my support on the videos in t west and ornery with that in mind i have included a top five list from doubt hera some arena specialists anti-western ornament you might want to have a quick pause in the video in case you want to check out all the lists and compare and i think this does a good job at showcasing how people view civilizations and arena different make sure to check all these guys out in the description of the video as well it's interesting to note how all the seven sieves we have mentioned are all featured in the top five lists of the different players and it also turns out i am the only one who thinks malaya are the best at last there are so many civilizations that we have not mentioned now that can be great options in arena such as francs vietnamese the list will go on and on if i keep going so i figured if you want to know my opinion on every single civilization in the game i have included a tier list for you so that's it i really hope you did enjoy the video leave a like if you did subscribe for more and let me know what you want to see next in the comment section and yeah i will see you for the next video

Channel: TheViper

Views: 53,513

Rating: 4.9781694 out of 5

Keywords: age of empires 2, age of empires 2 definitive edition, age of empires 2 strategy, age of empires 2 definitive edition strategy, theviper, theviper aoc, age of empires 2 build order, age of empires 2 definitive edition gameplay, age of empires 2 gameplay, age of empires 2 definitive, fast castle age of empires 2, age of empires 2 definitive edition review, age of empires 2 tips, age of empires 2 mods, arena, aoe2 arena, best civs, best civ, best arena civ

Id: 9kepgLRNssA

Length: 22min 27sec (1347 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021